Last fall, writing a book sounded like the perfect solution. A way to package up the impending struggles and force my crisis to have a bigger, more altruistic meaning. So that after my nightmare was over, I could nod sagely as I said, “Everything happens for a reason. I am grateful to my cancer experience. It has made me who I am today.”

I couldn’t face the reality that maybe sometimes bad shit just happens and that life doesn’t always make sense. Instead I needed to believe that the big, black cancer cloud had a silver lining buried deep inside its dark mass.

In order to make it real, I told everyone I knew about my book. I held on to encouragement and ignored people who patted me on the back while they suggested that this project would be therapeutic, even if no one ever read it. I knew they had good intentions, but had they not met me? Why on earth would I spend hours and hours of my life writing a book that no one would ever read?

I felt very writer-like when I sat down with my laptop at Starbucks on a sunny day in December. I diligently began to write a minute by minute account of my diagnosis day. When I read it back to myself, my eyes drooped with boredom. It was awful. I began to panic.

Then, I started chemo and forgot about my panic (or maybe I just lost my desire for panic in addition to my desire for meat, fresh air, and small talk). I concentrated on pulling my aching body through every day and when I wasn’t hallucinating on anti-nausea medication, I had to settle for writing in my journal.

When the fog of chemo and my second surgery began to lift, I realized that I had better focus more seriously on my goal, or I would have to admit defeat. (Impossible!) I wistfully wished that Oprah would reply to my letter (see blog entry #1). But, I needed a practical approach. I buried myself in reading the classics, took copious notes on how to write everything from memoirs to fiction to poetry, and became so worked up about learning how to write perfectly that my chest nearly exploded in anxiety every day for a month.

I told myself that I just needed to keep reading and learning. If I concentrated hard enough, I was sure that I could morph myself into a serious writer. In my future life, I pictured spending my mornings typing furiously and my afternoons going for long, contemplative walks. I would begin to look less mainstream and more artistic. I contemplated dressing only in black and trading in my contacts for dark rimmed glasses. I shook my head. Where exactly was I getting this fantasy from? I didn’t even know any writers.

I wrote furiously in my journal about my fears of failure. Who exactly did I think I was? How dare I believe that I could actually do this? Why couldn’t I get a grip and get back to the “real world”?

One day, I finally grabbed myself by the scruff of my own neck and shouted at my chattering mind, “Terri, Chill The F*$& Out! (C.T.F.O). You don’t have to create a perfect first draft. You just have to write.”

And so I finally closed the books and decided to take a break from trying to achieve perfection. Why not embrace imperfection for once in my life?

I continue to repeat my new C.T.F.O mantra whenever needed (i.e. multiple times a day). You are welcome to borrow it, if you think it might help.  I know it’s a little profane, but the words help to shock me out of whatever obsessive thought pattern I am running through on my mental hamster wheel.

And you know what? It’s working. This little book of mine is finally growing. One imperfect chapter at a time…